Scoring the series “Hey, Shipwreck”…
As some of you may have picked up from Pat Hrabe’s (incredibly flattering) blog a few days ago, I have begun working with him on scoring the machinima web series “Hey, Shipwreck”. To return the flattering blog, I’ll go on record to say that the reason that I was attracted to the project was Pat’s great art and humorous writing! Great work, Pat! If you haven’t yet checked it out — it’s available at www.tubedaze.com. Currently, we’re making the videos available as DivX and WMV, but we’re looking into other possibilities such as Quicktime and possibly even a video podcast! (which, of course, is Quicktime as well…)
To get to the meat of this blog, however, I wanted to comment a little bit at what I’ve found to be an interesting and much different medium than scoring for video games.
Approach
In video games, music is typically looped and on the shorter side because that is both cheaper for the person hiring you as well as more space efficient for the game’s footprint, especially if its a downloadable product. However, when dealing with film, you can never write more music than there is film, but you’ll most likely write far less. Also, the material is always used in sync with the picture in the same way every single time. So, you can more precisely craft exact emotions or “hits” to exact moments in the film. This adds both additional impact to your music as well as to the overall film experience.
Additionally, I had the opportunity to write the theme for the series. In this instance, Pat actually did this in reverse, the way that music videos are shot. In other words, the music comes first and the picture is cut to the music, not the other way around. Check out episode 2 or 3 and you’ll see what I mean — the video works very well with what’s happening in the music! It would be very difficult (if not impossible) for me to construct meaningful music in such a hard rock/metal style while trying to exactly match scence that have already been shot (unless, of course, he edited with a metronome clicking away… but that’s pretty unlikely).
(above: Okay, so I don’t actually write in the dark typically, but studio “action shots” typically come off much cooler! This is a scene from episode 3 of “Hey, Shipwreck”)
Style
The style that I’m trying to develop is one that basically employs some fairly active action percussion and combines that with a very laid back electric piano sort of thing (depending on the action) with a fair amount of traditional orchestral instruments in there as well.
In the vein of everything from Wagner’s “Ring Series” (opera) to William’s “Star Wars” films, I’m employing the technique of leitmotif. This is basically the idea of taking a particular theme in music and tying it to a an idea, visual, or character. I’ve started this, if you watch episodes 2 and 3 when you see “the cheif” in the gold suit as well as FRED (in ep 3 only). More information about leitmotif:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leitmotif
Finally, I’m working hard to make sure the music is a character in itself and so the timing is very crucial. Having the music drown a joke or critical line would really ruin the episode for everyone. It’s important that the comedic beats are in place so that jokes can be used effectively. Along the same lines, music can add to the ridiculousness of a situation by being completely out of place. For example, I personally find it very amusing in episode 3 when the characters are talking to FRED about getting authorization to use “deadly force”. Their shipmate is in danger of being skewered, but they need to deal with this cheerful computer thing to get authorization. When the action is focussed on FRED, I chose instead of “action” more of a light calypso theme since FRED’s voice sounded calm and happy to me and the sailors are obviously annoyed by FRED’s mere presence, which makes it even more amusing.
At any rate, we are on schedule to ship a new ~5 minute episode every other Friday, so look for episode 4 to appear on January 5. Enjoy!
John Seguin - SeguinSound
Composer / Sound Designer
www.seguinsound.com
www.soundclick.com/seguinsound
